


James' Recollections

by RadScavver



Series: The Cadriff Chronicles [6]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Background Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RadScavver/pseuds/RadScavver
Summary: The Settler has had a different view of the Lieutenant's adventures and develops a fascination.





	James' Recollections

He’s been around longer than she knows. It’s been four long years since he abandoned _them_. The too clean, too mundane, too perfect society of murderers. They could pretend their hands were as pristine as their jumpsuits...but that didn’t erase the tarnish of corruption from their souls.

Back then, only a few months free of his prison, he hadn’t thought much of her. Of any of them.

They’d looked awful. Dirty, tired, stressed. The one leading had a twitch to his mouth and a crust to his eyes: addiction. Of all the group, only the one guarding the rear had even seemed to hold an sort of energy. That one…that one stood tall, even short and willowy as they were, and held their musket at the ready like they knew what they were doing.

It wasn’t until the first caravan hire fell that he’d realized that confidant minuteman was a woman. Within seconds, he’d been pinned to the wet earth beneath a bird-like frame. Breath had punched from his lungs at the gentle press of her against him. He’d only been able to lie there, nerves popping like static under his skin. Then she was gone.

She’d rolled off him so smoothly, one heavily booted foot slamming into the mud a scant inch from his head, bracing her as she returns fire. The zing of cells being discharged had been white noise past the pounding of his own pulse. Her face fascinated him, gaunt from hunger and twisted in furious concentration. But as the bullets continued to fly and chaos erupted within the caravan group. He’d been quick to retreat.

After that day, he constantly saw her.

She’d been chasing a herd of brahmin through raider-infested Boston. He’d nearly been caught by a Courser before the enraged pack animals had stampeded through and given him perfect cover to escape. When he’d circled back later, the synth had still been there, flattened from the numerous hooves and a clean hole burnt through its forehead.

A tribe of supermutants had attacked a settlement he’d stopped in. They mowed down untrained folk with frankensteined miniguns and sheer brute strength. It’d been the rumbling that gave him the forewarning to hide atop a shack, seconds before the ground had spewed forth molerats in numbers he’d never seen before. The whole army of them were followed quickly by a squad of minutemen. She was at the lead.

He’d been passing the Castle, careful to keep himself far enough out to stay undetected, and her voice echoed out. He’d paused. She sounded so odd over the cobbled speaker system, almost fake like the automated voices he’d been so used to in his old life. Then he truly listened to her words. Yao guai, loose and rampaging, all because someone had switched the radios to classical. Her tone had been as furious as the bears, and he’d hunkered down in a partially demolished building to simply enjoy her booming words.

Ticonderoga, helping synths, and a cry about mirelurks in the streets. He’d grabbed a recon scope with something not unlike anxiety thrumming in his fingers. Sure enough, she spearheaded the way through old city ruins, her unit close behind and a veritable legion of monstrous crabs trailing along like ducklings. The hulking figure of a Queen hadn’t even stirred any sort of alarm in him. She could handle them all.

Every glimpse.Each fragment of presence. He’d hoarded them in his mind like treasures. He’d marveled at all those little changes people didn’t care about anymore. Increased weight, new scars, hair length, clothes, sunburn. It all seemed so...exotic. After so many years trapped amidst people who never changed, didn’t need to, he found himself intrigued by the regular settlers of the Commonwealth. But she…

She is special.

He knew he was lost, long before he volunteered with the Minutemen, There’d been no going back when he’d offered his services to make settlements safer for _her_ creatures, regardless of what he told them.

The day he’d found himself face-to-face with her, he’d nearly been sick.

Beautiful. Gorgeous. Enchanting. All these words came to mind and were lost to him. How could he truly expect trivial human language to encapsulate the depth of his admiration for her?

Standing there with a mirelurk gentled at her side, she’d made him feel young, foolish. Her hair had been a messy cloud in the sunlight, glistening and sweet like old world candy floss, and the pink of it had nearly blinded him. The clothes she wore were thin with wear and casual in a way he’d never seen on her. He’d always seen her ready for battle. Had seen her filthy with victory and howling with it. It’s not the same now, with her face calm and gaze wandering.

He’d wondered if he’d been dreaming. It had to be, like some dirt-stained novella come to life in the best possible way. A fantasy vision for him to bask in. She was a princess, a general, a goddess. Laughing in soft content as deadly claws pinch harmlessly at exposed legs. Completely at ease in her own existence and thriving with her power over it.

That afternoon he’d been struck by how his body responded to her.

Her attunement to her creatures; the blaze of protective fury that made those ferine eyes gleam like stars. God, but she was glorious. And when he’d worried over the poor beast, truly concerned he might’ve harmed the chosen ward of this powerful woman? The softening of her had been breathtaking. Pliable, warm. A jungle cat lazing in sun, languid in its pose but ready to strike and kill in a flash. Then the bark and roll of her laughter. Cheeks pinkened in sudden flush, a careless smile curling rose lips.

She’d been so very alive. He’d been so very entranced.

He’d wondered then, how far would he go for her smile.

He knows now...and it doesn’t simply end with blood.


End file.
